


It was always going to be you...

by WinterRose527



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergence, Canon What Canon, I'm Going to Hell, Modern AU, past Sansa Stark and Jon Snow, who wants to join me?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 07:36:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11893023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterRose527/pseuds/WinterRose527
Summary: The four of them had been friends their whole lives. Then Sansa was killed tragically, and the three of them held onto each other tighter than ever, desperate to see one another through. One night, they are there for each other in unexpected ways...





	1. Christmas Eve

 

It was Christmas Eve. It was always hardest at this time of year for all of them, but especially Jon.

 

Sansa had loved Christmas. She loved the special red cups at Starbucks and Jingle Bell Rock. She loved buying presents and drinking egg nog and wearing nothing but flannel pajamas and slippers for days on end.

 

She loved New Years too, and the Starks annual party hadn’t felt the same in the past three years without her. The culprit had long since been caught, but that did nothing for those who knew her, those who loved her.

 

Ella Stark, nee Ella Baratheon, was one such person. They had been friends since they were children, the kind of friends you hope your kids will have. They loved each other, supported each other, protected each other. They fell in love with best friends too, Robb and Jon. Sansa’s older brother and his best friend. Because sometimes, things worked out exactly they were supposed to.

 

And sometimes they didn’t, which is why Jon now sat on her couch, a little in his cups as Robb finished the dishes. She patted Ghost and Grey Wind on her way over to him, plopping next to him and offering him a glass of water. He sipped it gratefully, until finally he was downing it and set it on the table. He even pulled a coaster out of the drawer, because even when Jon Snow was sad and buzzed he would still do anything to make her happy.

 

“Do you remember the Christmas Eve that Sansa first tried eggnog?” Ella asked quietly, testing the waters. Sometimes he liked this game, and they would spend hours reminiscing about the girl they loved, and other times he detested it, preferring to keep the demons in his mind at bay.

 

“Oh my god she was so sick the next day. She kept saying _I’ve overindulged, I’ve overindulged_ ,” he said with a smirk.

 

Ella giggled. They had spent the whole day in bed, the four of them. She had drunk champagne while Sansa drank eggnog and was feeling no better, and Robb and Jon were always happy to keep them company. They watched movie after movie in Robb’s big king bed until they all fell asleep while the snow fell outside.

 

Jon looks up at her and smiles, before his face takes on a more serious expression, his nearly black eyes lingering over her face, “By god you really are a beauty, aren’t you?”

 

“Jon…” she says with a playful shove. It wasn’t the first time he’d said something like that, he was always extra affectionate when he drank, but it still felt wrong.

 

He catches her hand on her chest and she feels his fingers as though they are branding her. “Jon…” she says again, but it is breathless, too breathless.

“Don’t say my name like that,” he says to her, his eyes blazing.

 

“Let go of my hand,” she says, fighting to keep her voice steady.

 

It was wrong. He had been in love with her best friend and Ella was madly in love with his, her husband of four years and the love of her life. Yet, she couldn’t deny what she was feeling in that moment. It was pure want, and she could feel it coming off of him, their desire egging the other’s on in a sadistic game.

 

It appears he no longer wanted to play because he closed the distance between them, pulling her by the back of her head until his mouth was on hers. It was wrong and too intense and so incredible that she moaned against him, ashamed of herself but unable to stop. She had to stop though, so she pushed him away.

 

“Jon, we can’t! Robb is…” she started, but was cut off by her husband.

 

“Right here,” he said.

 

“Robb, I’m so sorry, don’t be upset. Jon has had a bit too much to drink and we just, this has never happened before,” she said, getting off the couch and going to him, desperate to make him believe her.

 

“Well then it is a shame that you stopped, wife. I know that I wouldn’t be satisfied by just one kiss from you. Are you, Jon?” he asks his friend to Ella’s confusion.

 

“Not even close,” Jon answers, coming up behind her.

 

She feels like prey, they are closing in on her. The boys who had protected her her whole life. The ones who had beaten up Joffrey when he’d slapped her, the ones who had threatened Trystane when they’d started dating. Yet now it seemed it was them she needed protection from as they stalked her. She wasn’t disappointed that no one came to her aid as she felt Jon press against her from behind though.

 

“Robb?” she asks questioningly. Robb had always had a jealous streak, yet he showed no signs of disapproval as his best friend pushed her hair to the side and started peppering kisses to the column of her neck.

 

“I can see you fighting it, Ella,” Robb said, his voice like velvet, “You don’t want to want him. It’s wrong. You love him too much. There is too much history. There is me, the love of your life. Stop fighting, sweet girl.”

 

He could talk her into anything. He was the one who convinced her to cut her first class Freshman year so that he could take her to a movie. He was the one who convinced her to sneak out so she could go to the field party. He was the one who convinced her to like it rough and dirty as much as slow and sweet. The secret was, he only convinced her to do things she already wanted to. He knew her too well, exposing her, freeing her.

 

She let out a little cry and turned, her hands finding Jon’s curls as she pulled his lips down to hers. He growled against her mouth and she felt it everywhere.

 

It was Robb now, who pressed against her from behind, whispering in her ear, “Fuck you are so beautiful in his arms. He’s wanted this for so long, probably since we were kids.”

 

Ella moaned at his words and felt Jon’s grip tighten on her as his tongue invaded her mouth, dancing with hers and a dizzying game.

 

“He’s right, doe,” Jon says, breaking away from her and taking her face in his hands. She feels Robb unbuttoning her jeans from behind, undoing the zipper. “Tell me, have you wanted me too? Do you want me?”

 

Robb’s hand slipped under her panties, rubbing her and Ella saw Jon’s gaze fall down her body hungrily.

 

“Y-yes,” she says, her head falling back against her husband’s shoulder as he teased her.

 

“Tell us how long, Ella,” Robb said in her ear, kissing the spot just behind her that always made her knees buckle. He knew her too well, so he already had his arm around her waist to support her.

 

“Since, _oh Robb_ ,” she said, fighting a moan as he circled her nub, “Since the um… the dance… sophomore year… _right there_ ,” she said.

 

“I _know_ where you want it,” Robb growled at her. He could be so cocky in bed and she loved it. “Keep talking, my love.”

 

“Jon you um… you slow danced with me, because Robb was with Jeyne,” she feels an extra bit of pressure from Robb when she says that. Even years later he still felt guilty about ever having been with anyone else. “And you um, dipped me and –“

 

“And my gaze fell from your eyes, to your lips, to your neck, and I said _This world has never known beauty like yours_ , _sooner or later he’s going to stop fighting it and love you the way he wants to_ ,” Jon said and Robb’s hand stopped.

 

“Robb I—I’m sorry,” she said. Because they had just crossed a line. There had always been something between her and Jon. Something they could dismiss and hide because it was easy, because they both had a Stark they loved more than life itself. But now Jon didn’t.

 

Robb spun her and kissed her hungrily and her arms wrapped around him immediately, because it was him, because there would never be anyone she wanted as much as him and she needed him to know it, even though it could be argued that it was he who started this game.

 

Robb broke away from her, “Tell her Jon, tell her the first time you wanted her,” and he tugs off her sweater, leaving her in her unbuttoned jeans and lacy light pink bra.

 

“She looked a lot like this actually,” Jon says and Ella can hear him smile from behind her. It comforted her, that she knew him this well, even as it scared her. “We were at the lake house and you and Sansa had already gone ahead to the bonfire. I came to grab Ella and I walked in on her, in these little white shorts and a white lacy bra deciding on what top to wear.”

 

“You told me you didn’t see anything!” Ella turned, rounding on him, nearly a decades old embarrassment resurfacing.

 

“Of _course_ I said that, doe. You were fifteen and horrified. But god did I see you…” he said and pulled her to him. She felt herself pliant in his arms, the callouses of his hands feeling strangely delightful against the smooth skin of her back, “But you are even more beautiful now than you were then.”

 

He kisses her then, and it is slow and sweet and she feels every argument leaving her as she holds onto him for dear life. Robb grows impatient, as she knew he would, and pulls down her jeans. Her panties follow close behind and suddenly Jon is on his knees in front of her. He presses a kiss to her, his tongue tentatively licking her and he lets out a groan, “Fucking hell, Ella.”

 

“I told you,” Robb said, “Sweetest cunt on earth…”

 

She was long past being ashamed when he said things like this, he had taken that shame away from her years ago and now she reveled in it, especially when Jon murmured his agreement against her. Robb unhooked her bra from behind, taking her breasts in his hands as he nipped and kissed her shoulder.

 

She was being held up by the pair of them, her back leaned against Robb and Jon held her firmly by the thighs, anchoring her. His tongue slid up her entrance, pressing against her nub as he let two fingers push into her.

 

“ _Oh Jon_ ,” she cried.

 

“That’s right Ella,” he murmured against her, his fingers moving in and out of her more purposefully now, “Fuck you are so tight, tell me what you like, Doe.”

 

He continued his ministrations, his tongue pressing against her just so and her fingers found his hair, pulling his curls until he groaned. The vibrations did funny things to her and she came apart with a cry of his name.

 

“Oh fuck,” he said against her, as he laid his cheek against her thigh, which strangely felt more intimate than what he’d just been doing and said, “I could feast on you all night.”

 

“Not _all_ night, brother,” Robb said, tweaking her nipples and demanding her attention once again, “I must have a turn as well, and if that was any indication, I can’t wait to watch you fuck her.”

 

Jon looked up at her and he gave her the look that he’d given her a thousand times in different circumstances. The same look he gave her when he’d taken her to her first high school party, the same look he’d given her when they’d run into Joffrey the week after he slapped her, the same look he gave her as they chose the flowers for Sansa’s funeral. It was the look that said, _It’s you and me, kid. You tell me we’re out and we’re out._ It was the look that told her everything would be okay as long as he was around.

 

“Too many clothes, you’re both wearing too many clothes,” she said.

 

 


	2. So that happened...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just filth.

 

They were quick to do her bidding. They always had been. They had been following her orders since she was a toddler and showed no signs of being hesitant to do so now.  
  
Of course, she had never ordered the pair of them to undress, as she felt overexposed standing in front of them naked.  
  
She had seen her husband naked thousands of times, knew every inch of his Adonis-like form but even still her breath hitched at the sight of him. He gave her a roguish smile, kissing her palm when she went to stroke his cheek.  
  
Jon though was new entirely. She'd seen him in bathing suits of course, but nothing could prepare her for his whole body revealed to her, his cock standing hard and erect as he gazed upon her.  
  
"You're both so beautiful," she whispered, because really, what had she done to deserve the gods in front of her?  
  
"Not as beautiful as you, Doe," Jon said as he came towards her, seeking her lips. He tasted like her but she didn't mind it from his tongue and she pressed her bare chest against him, the pair of them moaning at the feel of his skin on hers.  
  
Robb was at her back immediately, and she felt him hard and ready against her.  
  
"Fuck, my love," Robb said with a groan, his face in her hair and his hands absolutely everywhere, "He's so hard for you."  
  
"Like you're one to talk," Jon growled at him. Competitive even now.  
  
Robb chuckled and pressed himself against her making her moan. "Feel him, Ella," he says, his voice low.  
  
Ella's eyes meet Jon's as her small hand trails down his hard, scarred chest. She reaches down and he is smooth velvet, and she can't help but stroke the length of him. He was thick and long and so hard it seemed almost impossible. He groaned as her hand explored him and his gaze made her whimper.  
  
"Tell her what you want Jon," Robb said, his voice full of command and persuasion in equal measure.  
  
"Your mouth, Ella, please," he groaned. It was no small thing for a titan of a man to plead with her and she felt heady on desire and power as she knelt in front of him.  
  
She let her tongue circle his tip and he let out a string of expletives that brought a small giggle to her mouth despite the situation. Or perhaps, because of it. This was Jon after all. The same Jon that taught her to drive and gave her her first and last cigarette.  
  
She takes him further in her mouth, letting her tongue explore him as she rubbed his length.  
  
"Sit on the couch, Jon," Robb ordered desperately.  
  
Jon did what he asked and Ella took him back in her mouth, greedy now, wanting his moans and his fingers in her hair. Wanting to bring him the pleasure he'd just given her.  
  
She feels Robb at her entrance, kneeling behind her and without preamble he shoves into her, making her moan.  
  
"Fuck, Robb, do that again," Jon said with a cry.  
  
Robb chuckled and thrust into her again and again, eliciting her cries and dictating her rhythm.  
  
She slid up and down Jon's length and finally she got what he wanted. His rough fingers were tangled in her hair and he was letting out moan after moan.  
  
"Fuck Robb, you're going to kill her," Jon said in a strangled voice, noting Robb's merciless pace as he thrust into her over and over.  
  
_Don't stop, no please don't stop._  
  
She could hear Robb's grin behind her, "It'll take a lot more than that, my baby loves this, don't you love? Don't you love it when I take you hard and rough?"  
  
She cries her assent, taking Jon deeper as Robb started rolling his hips into her, hitting her in the spot that made her see stars.  
  
"Fuck, fuck I'm going to come, fuck" Jon said, and his abs were clenched and his hips were rising to meet her.  
  
Robb thrust into her again and she gasped, and all of a sudden she felt Jon spill in her mouth. Her victory released her own and with a final few thrusts Robb followed close behind.  
  
She probably would have collapsed, but Jon, _sweet, strong Jon_ , pulled her up onto the couch on his lap, and Robb settled in next to her, draping a blanket over her.  


"That was.... the hottest thing... ever..." Robb said as he pulled her half on his lap, so her legs draped over Jon and her back rested against Robb's chest.

 

Ella felt thoroughly fucked and laid her head against him, tilting to look up at him to give him a lazy smile. He leaned down to kissed her and she drew away quickly, covering her mouth with her hand. 

 

"Denying me, wife?" he asked with a smirk. 

 

"No... Jon..." she said, referencing the fact that another man had just spent in her mouth.

 

Robb purposefully drew her hand away from her mouth, tilting her chin up to him and kissed her deeply. She felt Jon's hands wander under the blanket, stroking her thighs, coaxing them apart.

 

She wasn’t entirely sure what had happened tonight. If you had asked her an hour ago, she would have told you she knew everything there was to know about these boys.

 

She could have told you that Robb always craved chicken tikka masala when he was hungover (what a weirdo) and Jon always watched _The Breakfast Club_ when he was sick. She could have told you that Robb was protective, bordering on possessive, and that Jon would throw himself in front of a bus for her.

 

She would have been wrong though. Because an hour ago, she never would have guessed that Jon would have kissed her, or that Robb would have been okay with it, or that they were ready for round two.


	3. Always, promise.

 

Robb pulled her to the bedroom, it was where they should have been anyway, not in the glow of the big, proud Christmas tree or the crackling fire.

 

“I want _you two_ to kiss,” Ella said teasingly as she hopped on their big bed. Jon and Robb only smirked at her as she made herself comfy on the pillows.

 

“I would do _anything_ for love, but I won’t do that…” Robb said, grabbing her by the ankles and pulled her giggling form towards him.

 

“Are you _sure_? Because I think it would be rather _hot_ ,” she said, sitting up and shifting so she was on her knees, pulling him towards her and letting her teeth graze his jaw. His hands wove into her hair and she moved towards him as though she might kiss him, but pulled away at the last moment, “Tsk tsk tsk, too bad…”

 

“Ella…” Robb groaned.

 

She rolled her eyes at him, because there was nothing quite like making her glorious husband pout and then she turned to Jon. She raised her eyebrow at him and gave him a devilish smile.

 

“What are you up to, Doe?” he asked her curiously. He was intrigued, in spite of himself. As much as he’d lead her, taught her, protected her over the years, he had always loved following the beat of her drum.

 

“Why don’t you come _closer_ Jon Snow and find out?” she asked, resisting the urge to stick her tongue out at him. She was twenty-five after all and in bed in front of two most beautiful men on the planet.

 

“Closer, hmm?” he asked her in a low voice, walking towards her. His fingers traced over her collar bone, pushing her hair back, “And why would you want me to do that?”

 

She let her arms loop over his shoulders, her eyes trailing down his face to his kissable, pouty lips. “Because I really,” she said moving closer, “and I mean _really_ ,” she said, their lips almost touching, “Want you to kiss…” she said and pushed him away suddenly, “Robb.”

 

“Fucking hell, Ella,” Robb said and she could tell she had about 30 seconds before lost his patience and attacked her. She wondered what she could do to speed it up.

 

Just then Jon turned and with a “Fucking hell” of his own, took his best friend’s head in his hands and kissed him. Twice.

 

Robb pushed him away, “Dude, _what the hell?_ ”

 

“Dude,” Jon mocked him, causing Ella to bite her lip to keep from smiling. “It’s Ella. She could have kept this going all night,” he said and then turned to Ella with fire in his eyes, “And I for one have other plans for her…”

 

Every fiber in her body told her to run. There was something to that look. Something wild and hungry and _real._ But she stayed where she was, because she’d seen that look before, in Robb. Of course they’d be alike. In no way more real than the fact that she needed them both. Always had, always would.

 

“Do you want to know what those plans are, my love?” Robb asked with a glimmer. Ella only nodded.

 

“Get on the bed, Robb, I want to watch her take you in her mouth,” Jon said. Apparently they’d changed roles and Jon was now in control. Ella wondered vaguely if she’d get a turn, but didn’t mull it over too much, happy in their overly capable hands.

 

Robb hopped on the bed, lying back on the pillows, splaying wide and proud, knowing he was a man about to come. Ella crawled over to him, hooking a leg on either side of him and leaning down to nibble his bottom lip.

 

“Do you want my mouth, baby?” she asked.

 

“You know I do, sweet girl,” he groaned against her, his tongue entering her mouth as he cupped her butt, pulling her flush against him.

 

She kissed her way down his body, taking care to nip and lick him in all the places he liked. He was hard and ready for her, just like he always was (she’d once nicknamed his cock Old Reliable) and she took him in her mouth without preamble.

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Robb said.

 

Ella hummed in response, bobbing up and down him, lathering his length with her tongue.

 

“She’s a true talent, eh?” Jon asks from beside them. Ella turns to look at him and he is stroking his own cock. She let’s out a moan and continues sucking Robb. “Tell me, has she always been this good?”

 

Ella says, “No,” at the same times as Robb says, “Yes.”

 

“Tell me about the first time she took you in her mouth,” Jon said and his voice was low and full of want. Ella felt herself almost shamefully wet, but she knew there wasn’t much point in shame now.

 

“I was um… _oh fuck Ella_ ….I was 18 and we um… _just like that, holy shit_ …. Snuck up to the treehouse during my father’s surprise party. She um, told me she wanted to uhh fuck…learn something new and only I could teach her….” Robb said, his head falling back on the pillows as his hands stroked her hair.

 

“Little minx,” Jon said with a chuckle, “And has she always liked it rough?” he asks as his hand finds the small of her back, moving down, tracing in between her butt cheeks.

 

Ella moaned on Robb and he thrusted up involuntarily, “No- no… she um… she made me jealous once. Was flirting with Harry fucking Hardyng… _sweet Jesus Ella, even now that name turns you on because of what I did to you that night, hmm?_... so I, _fuck yes, I’m so close_ , dragged her into one of the bedrooms and took her hard from behind, and I made her tell me who she belonged to. Isn’t that right my love?” he asks, lovingly stroking her face despite the absurdity of the situation.

 

Ella looked up at him and nodded, taking him in until she felt him at the back of her throat and just like that _SMACK!_ Jon had just spanked her, _hard_ , and she fought the urge to bite down on Robb, knowing that would only end in tears. His.

 

“Her mouth is like a vice grip right now, do that again. Harder, she’s stronger than she looks,” Robb commanded.

 

Jon smoothed his warm hand over her ass before lifting it off her and _SMACK!_ His hand had landed closer to her cunt this time and she let out a moan, sucking Robb furiously now.

 

“Fuck, Ella, _yes, yes, yes” SMACK, SMACK_ “ _Fuuuck,”_ her husband exclaimed as he came in her mouth. She sucked him clean and when his body has stopped shuddering she turned to Jon.

 

“ _Harder_ ,” she pleaded.

 

He looked at her for a moment, as though wondering if she was serious. She held his gaze, though it was difficult and he took a deep breath and then _SMACK_.

 

“ _Jon…”_ she moaned. She wasn’t sure why she liked this, but she did. There was something about having a man who would fight and die for you treat you like something in need of discipline.

 

“Ella,” he groaned, _SMACK_ , “I had no idea you were so,” _SMACK,_ “fucking,” _SMACK_ , “naughty…” _SMACK._

_No, no not yet,_ she thought but couldn’t help it as she felt the orgasm wash over her. She let out a whimper as her body shook, a flush on her cheeks.

 

“Did you just come?” Jon asked her, and his voice sounded like it was at the bottom of a tomb.

 

“Yes she fucking did. Beautiful thing, huh?” Robb said, his voice returning to normal after his own ecstasy had subsided.

 

Jon didn’t answer him, his eyes were on her and her alone, “Get on your back, Ella.”

 

Ella glanced at Robb who nodded at her and she moved so she was on her back, her head on the pillows. She crossed her ankles primly, as though that could help her now. He chuckled at her, as though she were a silly little girl and pried her legs apart, climbing on top of her.

 

He was all predator, almost entirely animal as he crawled up her body, but as he poised himself at her entrance and her breath hitched he looked into her eyes, the usual kindness there once again, “You still with me, Doe?”

 

“Always. Promise,” she says, because it was true, and it was what they always said to each other.

 

One hand gripped a thigh as he pushed into her. He felt different than Robb, the only man she’d ever had inside of her, and she wiggled her hips trying to accustom herself to it.

 

Jon took no time at all, however, “Oh sweet Jesus you have the sweetest cunt on earth.”

 

It was so similar to what Robb would say to her that she relaxed entirely, one leg hitching up over his back, her hand finding his inky black curls.

 

He took up a pace, quick and punishing, as though he had something to prove. She went on the journey with him willingly, as he rolled his hips against her.

 

“Oh _Jon_ ,” she murmured, because he felt too good. New and familiar all at once.

 

“Look at me, Ella,” he commanded. She hadn’t realized her eyes had fallen shut until he said and she opened them dreamily.

 

His dark eyes were practically molten as they gazed down at her and his breath spasmed, letting out a little heart wrenching cry. His hand found her cheek and suddenly his pace slowed, he rocked into her now, his eyes studying her every movement.

 

 _I’ve seen that look before_ , she thought. It was the same way Robb had looked at her when they’d made love for the first time. Like she was the single most precious thing in his world, like he couldn’t believe she’d chosen him. The realization is like a slap in the face and she lets out a cry of her own.

 

“Stay with me, Doe,” Jon said, his breath labored, his voice pleading. _Stay? How could I ever leave?_

He rolls them over so she is on top of him and his hands move to her waist, moving her in a delicious pattern that hits her right at her nub all the while pulling him deeper and deeper inside of her. Her head falls back and suddenly his mouth is at her throat. He was seated upright now, his hands still moving her on him.

 

Her hands find his shoulders as he thrusts up to meet her hips and her forehead falls against his cheek.

 

“I’ve got you, Doe. _Always, promise_ ,” he whispers, his voice like wet sand. He pulls her back by her hair gently so she can look him in the eye, “Just stay with me, _please_ ,” he pleads with her.

 

She is close, so close but she says anyway, _“Always, promise_.”

 

He kisses her then and as he swallows her cries of pleasure she knows that they’ve crossed a line. That this was no longer a night of wild fun. They’d told each other that they loved one another and Robb had heard and nothing would ever be the same again.


	4. Christmas Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is taking on a mind of it's own. No smut (sorry), just angst and fluff and CHRISTMAS.

 

Jon woke with a start. He could tell it was still early, the grey light of the morning poking through the curtains, but he was alone in his best friends' bed.  
  
Kissing Ella had sobered him immediately, but he still wasn't entirely sure what had happened last night. Or rather, he knew what had happened, but he wasn’t sure how exactly and he knew he wasn't going to be able to face Ella and Robb without a shower. A cold one most likely.  
  
He padded into their bathroom and washed himself. As he dried off, he went into the cabinet and pulled out one of the new toothbrushes Ella always had ready for guests and brushed his teeth.  
  
His clothes had been neatly folded and placed on the daybed in their room, but Jon couldn't bear to put on his dirty clothes so he went into Robb's closet and got a pair of sweatpants and t shirt.  
  
It was Robb he saw first, coming through the front door with a Grey Wind nipping at his heels, fresh snow on both of their heads. His best friend offered him a small smile.  
  
"How are you guys awake?" Jon moaned.  
  
"We're parents," Robb said with a roll of his eyes, "We're always awake."  
  
Jon nodded, patting Grey Wind's head as he wandered into the living room. The sight that met him never failed to stop his heart, no matter how many times he saw it.  
  
"Uncle Jon!," his favorite voice in the world called excitedly. His nephew was a perfect blend of both Robb and Ella, with his russet curls and her green eyes. At three almost to the day he was quick and intelligent and so funny sometimes it beggared belief.

 

"We're reading about Rudolph! Did you know that he helped Santa? Want to read with us? Mommy will read it again..." Tommy said, practically vibrating with excitement – this being the first Christmas he really understood.

 

"I can't wait to hear allll about Rudolph, I'm just going to grab some coffee. Does your mommy want some?" he asked him, not feeling quite ready to address Ella. Not now, when she looked beautiful and innocent in her cream bulky turtleneck and red flannel pajama pants, her young son splayed out on top of her as though she was his favorite chair. 

 

"Always," Tommy says as though it's obvious and Ella looks up at Jon and giggles at him, as though he hadn't spanked her last night, as though he hadn’t tasted her perfect cunt. 

 

Jon smiles at her, he couldn’t not, she was _Ella,_ and goes into the kitchen. He pours them each coffee, black for him, almond milk and two sugars for her and comes back into the living room. 

 

"For you," he says as he hands her the mug like he had so many times before, and their fingers brush like they had so many times before, but he feels an electricity that he'd never felt before. _Or perhaps one you’ve always felt and ignored._

 

Ghost was sitting on one side of them on the couch (for all Ella's rules about tidiness, she could never deny cuddling up on the couch with the dogs) his head on Tommy's lap as the little boy patted him with tiny hands.

 

"And for you," he says, handing Tommy a soft ginger molasses cookie he'd picked off the kitchen table. 

 

"Uncle Jon is being naughty!" Ella faux-gasped.  
  
_I had no idea you were so fucking naughty..._  
  
He meets her eyes and he knows she is thinking of the same thing. He wasn't quite sure if it was a slip or intentional but either way it had been said and it hung in the air between them.   
  
"It's Christmas," he says finally, plopping down on their other side, as Tommy climbs across his mother to settle into his lap.  
  
"Yeah it's Christmas..." Tommy says. Jon kisses his soft curls, still that of a baby, and he knows that their facial expressions match as they turn to Ella.  
  
"You two are incorrigible," she says with a sighing smile and a shake of her head.  
  
"What's incuggible?" Tommy asks him.  
  
"It means your mommy loves you."  
  
"And you, Uncle Jon..." Tommy says with all the assurance of a child.   
  
He can't meet Ella's gaze, and she must feel the same way because she opens the book, "'Twas the day before Christmas and all through the hills..." Ella started.  
  
She was such a mom, so unlike her own, nestling the blanket over Tommy and therefore Jon as she read. Tommy took hold of a lock of her hair holding it as his other hand played with Jon's hand that rested on his chest.  
  
Robb walks in and smiles, though his eyes linger over the way Tommy has pulled Ella towards him, so that her head nearly rested on Jon.  
  
"Room for one more?" he asks them.  
  
"Always Daddy!" Tommy said, looking up at his hero.  
  
"Hmmm... now where to sit..." Robb said, tapping his finger against his mouth. Tommy giggled, loving the way Robb stalked forward playfully.  
  
Ella giggled like a little girl when he picked her up and sat on the couch, with her in his lap.  
  
"You read, Daddy," Ella said, nestling her head under his chin.  
  
"Mommy loves Daddy, too," Tommy whispered in Jon’s ear.

 

Jon looked over at his two best friends in the world, the people he loved far more than his own life, the man he called brother and the girl he’d worshipped since her little fist first held his finger. Robb started reading, the cadence of his tone rising and falling as the story twisted and turned, pulling a blanket around Ella and settling it around her just as she had with Tommy.

 

FLASHBACK

 

_The rain hit the window in Robb’s bedroom mercilessly, it felt like they were under a waterfall. That was nothing in comparison to the ever-present cracking of thunder and flashes of light. Jon lay awake in Robb’s top bunk, knowing that sleep wouldn’t come. He wasn’t afraid, he loved storms, but the thunder would wake him up every time._

_Robb tossed and turned below, shaking the bed in frustration. Robb always slept 8 hours, couldn’t function otherwise even at seven years old and he could be terribly grouchy when he didn’t get it._

_Just then the door creaked open and Jon rolled on his side to see five year old Ella crossing the bedroom floor on tip toes. She looked like a fairy princess with her golden hair and light blue nightgown._

_“Ella?” Robb asked, and Jon felt the bed rattle again as he obviously turned towards her._

_“Is Zeus attacking?” Ella asked him, a hint of worry in her tone. He and Robb had been learning all about the Gods of Mount Olympus, of the demi-gods and titans and all of the other wonders in school and had told Sansa and Ella all about them._

_“Zeus is defending us,” Robb said, his voice taking on that of a great story teller, and he could feel the bed shifting again as Robb kneeled, “Hades came for you, Persephone,” and suddenly Ella disappeared as Robb pulled her in with him, “but we will never let you go,” Robb said._

_Ella giggled, “You will protect me too, Ares?”_

_“With my last breath. They will not take my Spring,” Robb said._

_Sansa had wanted to be Aphrodite after they’d showed her that painting in a book of Catelyn’s. Not wanted to be, but was. They had the same red hair and both spread love and beauty wherever they went. Ella though, was Persephone without a doubt. Beautiful and willful, and so sweet she could tempt Death himself._

_Just then another crack of thunder hit, sounding closer than any of the others and he heard Robb coo, in the voice he reserved solely for Ella, “Don’t be scared, Doe. I have you. I’ll keep you safe.”_

_“I know,” she said with a sigh, “I always know I’m safe with you.”_

_After that the bed stopped rattling, and soon their steady breaths filled the room as they slept. At five and seven they slept as soundly as the children they were, not realizing that they’d just told each other they loved one another._

PRESENT DAY

 

“I know buddy,” Jon whispers back, “She always has and she always will.”

 

***

 

“Ella, you are _insane_ ,” Robb says to her as she stuffs used wrapping paper into a trash bag.

 

“You say that like it’s a _bad_ thing,” she says with a smile and a kiss to his lips.

 

Robb looks over the new watch, a Patek Philippe in his favored muted steel. He had never gotten fully used to Ella spoiling him.

 

Sure, he had been known to overdo it as well, there was a new Range Rover in the garage for her after all, but still. It never felt right being spoiled by Ella, who gave him everything he needed just by breathing, and by giving him the greatest gift of his life, their son Tommy.

 

Jon lay on the floor on his stomach with Tommy now, setting up the new train set he’d gotten him.

 

“Are you boys going to change for lunch?” Ella asked as she stepped over the obstacle course of dogs and trains and boys.

 

“No,” Robb, Jon and Tommy all say and she shakes her head, going to check on the feast cooking in the kitchen.

 

His whole family was coming over for Christmas lunch, his mother hadn’t been up to hosting every since Sansa died, they had always cooked it together, so Ella being more a daughter than a daughter-in-law had graciously stepped in. She’d even hosted that first year, deep in mourning for her best friend, a newborn son only weeks old. It had only been pizza, but she had gathered his whole family and a new tradition had started.

 

“Daddy, come be Henry,” Tommy said, holding up a green train.

 

Robb crawled over on the floor, nudging his head into Grey Wind as he did, until his dog was half wrestling him half kissing him. When he finally made his way over, he took the green train from his son and wondered, almost a kid himself, at the intricate train set in front of him.

 

“Let’s go through the Black Mountains!” Tommy shouted.

 

“Alright, buddy, lead the way,” Robb said, a smile on his face.

 

This was exactly what Christmas morning was supposed to be. Pajamas and family and toys sparking an imagination.

 

“I’m um, going to go help El,” Jon said standing up. Robb nodded at him, fighting the urge to follow him as he ruffled his son’s hair.

 

“He’s sad,” Tommy said as Jon walked away.

 

Robb looked at his son, who had always been more perceptive than any child had a right to be and Tommy continued, “He misses Auntie Sansa.”

 

Tommy talked about his Aunt like he had known her. Robb and Ella had made it their mission to tell him all about her, from the way she had sewn the curtains in his room herself, to her love of lemon cakes and her dog, Lady, who’d died the same night she did. He could pick her face out of a crowd without hesitation, and sometimes he’d giggle to himself and say, “Auntie Sansa would love this.” He was always right too, whether it was an overcast and windy day on the beach or a silly video.

 

“I think you’re right, buddy,” Robb says.

 

“So does Mommy,” Tommy says, letting up the gate to let the trains through the tunnel. “And you.”

 

FLASHBACK

 

“ _Where is she?!” Robb cried, his eyes already stinging from tears._

_Jon was on his heels, and he was threatening nurses and doctors alike. They had just come from the morgue, they hadn’t even had time to process what they’d seen when Robb got the call from Arya._

_They finally made their way to the maternity ward and his whole family was spread out in the hallway, not even bothering to be in the waiting room. It wasn’t right, none of this was right. This was supposed to be the happiest days of their lives, and now, one of their beautiful girls had been taken away from them and the other fought for the life of her unborn son._

_“Robb,” his father said, “They won’t let anyone in. There’s been some complications, it’s, it’s too early. They’re doing everything they can.”_

_“They’ll let me in,” Robb growled at him. His father looked at him, not in sympathy, but in empathy. He had lost a child today, something no father should have to do, and Robb could see him wishing Robb wouldn’t know the same pain. Robb let out a guttural cry, “Dad…”_

_His father pulled him to him and he sobbed like a child, for his favorite little sister that he’d lost, for his perfect wife, for his unborn son who should not have been born for another month._

_“Mr. Stark?” a doctor asked._

_“Where is she?” Robb repeated as he turned around._

_“She’s in urgent care, Mr. Stark. We’re doing everything we can, everything, I assure you. But there may come a time when you will have to choose, the life of the mother or the child,” the doctor said and he had the good grace to look sorry._

_“I will NOT CHOOSE!” Robb thundered. The doctor didn’t even blanche._

_“Robb, darling, you have to,” his mother cried._

_No, no, no, I can’t. I need them both. I won’t survive without them both. Take me instead, take my life for theirs, it’s a good deal, take it. Take me. Let them live._

_“The baby,” Jon said, and his voice was strong and sure despite the pain in it._

_“This is not your decision!” Robb seethed._

_“No, it’s not. It’s hers. It’s what she wanted,” Jon said, his grey eyes nearly black with pain. “She told me months ago. The first time she ever felt him kick. She made me promise that I’d make you choose him.” Robb looked at him incredulously, the tears flowing down his face. Jon sighed. “It’s Ella. For her, it wasn’t even a choice.”_

_My brave, selfless girl. My only heart. Be strong, my love, and come back to me._

_“Do EVERYTHING you can to save them both, but if it comes to it, save our son.”_

_The doctor retreated then and Robb left his family and stole into the frigid night air, letting out a guttural cry that sounded more like a howl to his ears._

PRESENT DAY

 

“Yeah buddy, we all miss her. But we have you, and you remind us of her every day. She loved you so much, even when you were in your Mommy’s tummy. You’re so like her, little wolf, and you make us happy every day, even when we’re sad.”

 

***

 

There was nothing quite like standing in her kitchen, as the familiar smells wafted around her, Grey Wind and Ghost at her feet, hoping for a taste but comforted by the warmth and the smells regardless. She had always loved cooking and loved it more now, now that she had a son and a husband to take care of. They were her best customers, and Jon of course, and they often made up songs demanding her bread pudding or chicken marsala.

 

Christmas was her favorite holiday now, which was odd given everything, but it had been ever since she’d stopped celebrating with her family and started celebrating with the Starks. She’d come to Sansa’s house one day and little Rickon had taken her hand in his and dragged her over to the fireplace with a ‘Ta da!’ expression as he gestured to a stocking with her name on it.

 

If she had been celebrating, using the term liberally of course, with the Lannisters she would have been dressed in tartan and cashmere, a double strand of pearls around her neck as a maid dabbed perfume behind her ears. She would have gotten a check from her grandfather, a family heirloom from her mother, and the day would have been passed in half-concealed insults and too much wine.

 

Now though, she stood in her kitchen still in her plaid pajama pants, smelling of Tommy’s bath soap and nutmeg from the pie she’d baked, and had all of the gifts she needed (not including the way Robb had spoiled her, though he’d given their son all of the credit, and a bit of the blame too). The Starks would soon descend upon them, and Ella anticipated the lively hum of too many voices and too much love.

 

“No wonder Ghost prefers coming here, all he smells when I cook is burning,” Jon says from behind her and her heart starts racing.

 

It’s Jon though, so she turns around and smirks at him, “Yeah, yeah, you tell yourself that. You just can’t stand that Ghost likes me better,” she says and then gets on the floor so she can nuzzle Ghost’s head, “Don’t you boy?”

 

Ghost’s tail flops excitedly and Grey Wind, jealous just like his master, knocks her down so he can plop himself on top of her, licking her face.

 

Jon chuckles at her before coming over to shove Grey Wind gently off of her, helping her up.

 

“I think he frenched me,” Ella complains.

 

“Can’t really blame him…” Jon says.

 

“ _Jon_ …” she breathes out in warning.

 

“Don’t. Ella, don’t. That’s how this all started,” Jon says though he takes her hand in his anyway and holds it to his chest.

 

“All what?” she asks, not even bothering to hide her confusion. This was Jon, after all. “I don’t even know what this is, what that was, what… any of it means,” she says and hates that a single tear falls from her eye.

 

“Don’t cry, please don’t cry, Doe. I’ll leave right now if it will make this better for you. I was selfish, _so_ selfish,” he says and despite his words he pulls her forward by both of her arms, holding her to him. She can feel his heart beating in his chest, she can feel him hardening, she can feel his breath on her face and his fingers holding her arms and he is too much. There is too much of him. “I just…I needed you…and I _wanted_ you.” His forehead falls against hers, “I still do. But I’ll leave if it’s what you want. I’ll always do whatever _you_ want.”

 

FLASHBACK

 

_“Whatever I want?” Ella asks him excitedly._

_“Whatever you want, Doe,” he says. Then he picks her up, holding her so she can see all of the ice cream flavors at Pop’s._

_The owner comes over and chuckles at them, “So she won, hmm?”_

_“He let me win,” Ella says knowingly. At only 8 she knew when she’d been tricked._

_“Did not, Ella,” Jon says with a sigh._

_“You ‘tripped’ over flat ground, Jon. You’re the fastest runner I know,” she said._

_She didn’t really care that he let her win though, because that meant she got ice cream, and more importantly she got him all to herself. Not even Sansa got to come, not even Robb, just her. If he had won, she was going to have to stand up in front of the whole camp and sing ‘Greased Lightning’. She wasn’t sure if he let her win to hide her from that embarrassment or because he’d rather take her for ice cream than witness it but she figured it was probably a little bit of both._

_“I’d like black raspberry please, in a cone,” she said to Pop._

_“And for you?” he asked Jon as he set her down._

_“Black raspberry in a cup, for when hers falls.”_

_“Promise to invite me to your wedding, okay kids?” Pop asked them and they scrunched their noses at each other._

_After they’d gotten their ice creams, he’d lead her down the familiar streets to the lake. Just as he’d predicted, her cone had met its end half-way there and they took turns eating his, sharing the spoon like they had a hundred times before._

_“Do you think you’ll get married?” Ella asked him, thinking about what Pop had said to them._

_“Maybe when I’m 50…” Jon said with a smile, impersonating Theon Greyjoy._

_“I bet you’ll marry Sansa and have lots of babies,” Ella said teasingly._

_“Sansa would never want to marry me,” Jon said, and there was sadness there too profound for a boy of ten._

_“Any girl would want to marry you,” Ella said truthfully. He was one of the best boys she knew, he and Robb. He was good and strong and always knew right from wrong. He was polite and funny and he never made her feel like a stupid little girl the way Joffrey did._

_“And what about you? Are you going to marry someone rich and drink wine at lunchtime like your mother?” Jon asked her, and his smile was telling her that the thought was so ridiculous  that his words didn’t bite._

_“I just want to marry someone who loves me,” Ella says, thinking of the way her father never looked at her mother._

_“Everyone loves you,” Jon said, wiping ice cream from her lip and sucking it off of his finger._

_“Even you?” she asks him teasingly._

_“Always, promise.”_

PRESENT DAY

 

“Then stay. I don’t know what any of this is, or what it means, or anything, but stay, okay?”

 

“Always, promise.”


	5. The Knights of the Vale

 

 

“And then his _nose lights up and he saves the day!_ ” Tommy finished as they all ate their dessert.

 

All of the teenagers and adults around the table, though they knew perfectly well how the story went, oohed and aahed at the three year old. He was The Prince, and they his loyal court.

 

Ella met Catelyn’s eye across the table and smiled. Tommy had crawled into his grandmother’s lap as soon as the main course’s plates were cleared, and she held him to her now. He adored her, and often relied on her wise counsel when it came to him having another piece of candy. Ella always relented, because she was the grandmother. It was her job to spoil him.

 

“This pie is so fucking good,” Rickon says to her with a groan from his spot next to Catelyn.

 

He was seventeen now and would probably eat mulch if you put it in front of him after football practice, but he’d always loved her cooking. He used to sit on the counter while she baked, always wanting to be her special taste tester.

 

“Language!” Catelyn said, making Rickon blush.

 

“Yeah Rick, Tommy is into repeating _everything_ right now,” Robb said, though he smiled at his brother anyway. He was seated next to her and had taken to rubbing his socked foot up her calf under her pajama bottoms ever since the salad course was served.

 

“Still though, he’s not wrong,” Jon said, “It’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted,” then he turns to look at her and she feels his hand on her knee, “Almost, anyway.”

 

Robb nearly chokes on his piece, but it turns into a laugh halfway through and now Catelyn looks at her incredulously. Ella can only shrug as if you say _You raised him_ but has to swallow a gasp halfway through when Jon’s hand starts to raise.

 

He smirks next to her, the bastard, and when she tries to bat his hand away she feels Robb’s on her other leg. She looks between them as subtly as she can, and from their practiced smiles and the way they won’t look at her she knows that yes, they were in this together, and that no, she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

 

“Oh, Ella,” her father-in-law says, “I looked into what you told me, there is _no way_ your insurance should be covering that accident. That guy ran a red light and could have killed you in the process,” he says and both Robb and Jon’s hands tighten on her thighs. She can’t help it, she pats both of their hands, assuring them that she was fine. Perfectly, perfectly fine. “You’ll be getting a reimbursement shortly.”

 

“Thanks Dad,” she says with a smile, and his whole face lit up, the way it always did when she called him that.

 

“Yeah thanks Dad – how did you even get through?” Robb asks curiously. The insurance company was uniquely good at dodging people and even Robb, with all of the strings he could pull had given up when she’d assured him it wasn’t worth it.

 

“Nobody hurts my family,” Ned says as though it explained everything.

 

As Jon and Robb do the dishes, Ella curls up on the couch with Arya.

 

“How’s he doing?” the younger girl asked. Ella doesn’t need to ask who she’s talking about.

 

_Well, he seemed okay when his tongue was exploring my body, and better still when he had me ride him. He nearly slipped his fingers into my pajama pants at dinner so he may very well be losing his mind, but you know._

“I think he’s alright,” Ella said with a blush, hoping that the warmth from the fire would explain it.

 

“Is there something going on with you guys?” Arya asked her. Ella’s eyes shot to hers, the inquisitive grey that always cut through the bullshit, that always appraised you for what you really were. _A whore_. “There was a point during dinner where… I don’t know, he looked like he wanted to _attack_ you or something.”

 

_Oh so you saw that. What do you think it was? I felt his eyes on me and I couldn’t look._

“Oh, he um… was probably just mad at me for not making the Brussel sprouts this year…” she said with a shrug.

 

Arya giggled, “Well I think we were _all_ a little angry at you for that.”

 

***

 

“So my love, what did you think of Christmas?” she asks her son as she tucks him into bed.

 

“Auntie Sansa would have loved it,” he says assuredly and her heart aches.

 

She smooths back his hair, so like his father’s, and nods, “You’re right about that little wolf. Auntie Sansa would have _loved_ it.”

 

“Mommy?” he asked her. It was her favorite name in the whole world.

 

“Yes my love?” she asked him as he took her hand in his.

 

“Will you tell me a story about her?” he asks her.

 

He asked this at least once a week. She wasn’t sure exactly how she and Robb had decided he would learn everything there was to know about his aunt, but they had and now Tommy hunted for information about her the way other boys wanted to learn about war and rocket ships.

 

She lies down next to him in his little bed, her head on the pillow that smelled like his shampoo. “Do you want an old one or a new one?” she asks him.

 

“New,” he decides firmly, turning towards her and taking a lock of her hair in his hand. He loved her hair as much as Robb did, and more often than not twirled a lock of it around his little fingers.

 

“Alright, my love…” she says thinking. “Ah yes, how about I tell you the story of _Sansa and the Knights of the Vale_.”

 

“Oooh were they real knights?” Tommy asked, his interest piqued already.

 

“Well _they_ certainly thought so…” Ella said with a smile at the memory. _“Once upon a time there was a beautiful girl with long red hair and blue eyes. She had Winter in her bones and sunlight in her smile and all who gazed upon her deemed her the loveliest creature that ever existed. The lady Sansa was worshipped by all who knew her for her kindness and her thoughtful mind. Two though, loved her more than any other. She was their sweet princess, their commanding queen. One year on her birthday, she turned nine. People from all over her little kingdom came to pay tribute, bringing gifts and laughter and lemon cakes.”_

“Lemon cakes were her favorite!” Tommy says.

 

“Aye they were my love. She could eat them by the truckload and very nearly did,” Ella said. _“She received Winter roses and brand new satin slippers and all other manner of treasure from her beloved guests. One though, an evil boy disguised as a handsome prince, did not like good things. And there was no better thing than the Lady Sansa. So, when she wandered off into the woods to hunt for berries with her best friend –“_

 

“That’s you, mommy! _The sweet and beautiful Lady Ella_ ,” Tommy said. _Robb must have been telling him stories again,_ she thought _, or perhaps…_

_“Lady Sansa and Lady Ella wandered into the woods to where they had been told they could find berries. Even on Lady Sansa’s birthday she wanted to give her best friend a surprise, for berries were Lady Ella’s favorite. They walked hand and hand, their bare feet scrunching in the mossy ground until a cold voice cut into their laughter. ‘Well, well, well, what have we here?’ the evil boy asked them. ‘A dove and a doe, and nary a wolf in sight’ he said to them, and though it was summer the girls shivered. He stalked towards the girls slowly, and though they did not know what he wanted, they knew enough to be afraid. But just then, as if out of thin air, a gallant voice came from behind him, ‘Are you sure about that?’ one asked, just as another said, ‘The wolves have come again.’ He was a lion, this evil boy, and like a caged beast he fought and snarled, but the pack was too strong. When they had made sure he would not be bothering the girls again that day, they turned, and suddenly they were not wolves at all, but smiling boys. ‘Robb?’ Lady Sansa asked her elder brother. ‘Don’t worry Dove,’ he said with a smile, ‘He won’t hurt you.’ His best friend, with eyes like midnight vowed too, ‘We’re the Knights of the Vale and none will harm our Queen of Love and Beauty.’ They took the girls back to the castle and didn’t protest when Lady Sansa made them crowns of flowers. Instead, they wore them all day long, her loyal knights, intent on bringing only joy to their beloved Lady Sansa.”_

“Are you really a knight Daddy?” Tommy asked and Ella turned to find Robb watching them from the doorway. There were tears in his eyes and Ella offered him a sad smile which he returned in kind.

 

It was Jon who spoke, “Of _course_ he is little wolf.” She hadn’t realized that he too was listening and his voice was a bit gruff.

 

“And you too Uncle Jon?” Tommy asked hopefully. He adored Jon, wanted to be just like his big strong uncle, and not for the first time Ella wanted to fall on her knees before them and thank them for being the kind of men she’d want her son to become.

 

“Oh yeah, buddy,” Robb said, recovering now.

 

“Alright, my love you have had a very long day indeed. It’s time for dreams of sugar plums,” she said, kissing Tommy’s head and easing out of her bed.

 

“Come on,” Robb said and soon Grey Wind and Ghost loped in, hopping on Tommy’s bed. Grey Wind, the ham, lay where Ella had, his head on the pillow next to him, but Ghost curled up at his feet, snoring happily within seconds.

 

Ella crossed the room and stroked Robb’s face as she went by, averting Jon’s gaze and Robb shut off the light and closed the door. Tommy’s bedroom was in a different wing of the house than theirs, but with Grey Wind and Ghost with him he never gotten frightened and neither did his parents.

 

She walks to her bedroom, wanting a shower and her bed, wondering if she can convince Robb to watch Charade again. She closes the door and starts to undress.

 

She wanders to the bathroom naked, turning on the faucet and stepping under the warm water. She hears the bedroom door opening and closing. They don’t need to talk to let them know it’s both of them. She ignores them, intent on punishing them for playing with her at dinner and she lathers her shampoo in her hair, keeping her eyes closed and letting the calming smell of lavender waft around her.

 

They step into the large shower, one after the other and still, she doesn’t turn around. She feels hands in her hair, rinsing the shampoo from her hair gently until bubbles rest at her feet. The same hands trace down her neck, their forehead pressed against her skull.

 

“I want another baby, Ella,” he says. _Robb_. He was filled with a primal desire to have more children, and she knew it only intensified when he saw her with their precious son. They hadn’t been trying, but he had asked her that morning to stop taking her birth control. He turned her around, his fingers on her cheeks, “Give me a little girl who looks just like you.”

 

She sighed, all thoughts of punishing him gone from her mind and stood on her tip toes to kiss him. He pulled her body to him gently and he was hard and eager for her. Her hands wandered down his muscled back until they reached his butt and she grabbed on firmly with both hands, perching a leg on the shower seat and bringing him inside of her.

 

“ _Ella_ ,” he groaned, his face contorting in pleasure. _God how I love him_ she thought as their bodies worked together in that familiar, delicious pattern. They had been making love for nine years and he knew exactly how to make her body sing for him. He hooked his hands under her thighs, lifting her up and pressing her against the wall.

 

“ _Oh Robb_ ,” she sighed, her arms around his neck.

 

She heard a strangled noise and turned to find Jon staring at them. She had almost forgotten he was here. _Almost_. There was something more intense about him being there tonight. Robb wasn’t fucking her, he was making love to her. There was no harshness, no chuckling, no playfulness, only the unadulterated fact that they loved each other more than life itself. And Jon knew it.

 

“Jon,” Robb growled.

 

Ella wasn’t sure exactly what he meant by the word but Jon did and he came closer, taking Ella’s face in his hands and leaning into kiss her. His lips were made for kissing, soft and gentle with a quiet force that told her he didn’t need to rush, that he would spend every second of the rest of his life kissing her if she so asked him. Robb moved in and out of her at a slow, teasing pace and she felt positively overwhelmed. Jon let his hand moved down the front of her body, his hand cupping her breast, thumbing at her peaked nipples. She looked at Robb whose eyes were on Jon’s hands and if it was possible she felt him grow harder inside of her. Jon let his hand wander down lower, until it wedged in between her and Robb and she thought she might go blind when he strummed her sensitive nub. Her eyes followed his hand and it was too much, the sight of her and Robb’s bodies joined and his fingers pressed against her was too much. Surely it was damning to know such pleasure.

 

But she found she had no fear of hell when they were with her and closed her eyes, crying out both of their names in a never-ending whirl of gratitude and devotion.

 

“She’s so close,” Robb gritted out and she felt Jon speed up his rhythms in response. “Oh she’s so fucking close, that’s it Ella. There’s our girl, come for us. Come for us sweet girl.”

 

Something about him saying _us_ threw Ella over the edge and she came with a whimper. Jon leaned his head against her, kissing her brow, cooing encouraging words in her ear as Robb thrust up into her before releasing a cry of his own. He nearly collapsed, and Jon rushed in to hold her steady, as though Robb would ever drop her.

 

“Take her to bed,” Robb said and Jon obeyed without a word, leaving Robb in the shower to collect himself.

 

He scooped her into his arms and she couldn’t resist leaning her head against his big strong chest. He didn’t let go of her when they got to the bed, instead he knelt on it, lowering her slowly until he was hovering over her.

 

“What is this?” she asks him softly, “Why is he doing this?”

 

It didn’t make any sense. Her possessive husband willingly pushing his best friend and wife into bed together. She had puzzled over it all day, the way Robb was urging them forward.

 

“I don’t know, Doe…” he said, his earnest grey eyes searching hers. “I can’t figure it out. But…” he says, his hand circling her hip, “I don’t have the strength to fight it.”

 

She didn’t either, neither the strength nor the desire.

 

“Jon I-“ she started but he kissed her, stopping her. _Don’t say it_ , his kisses told her, _but me too._

He flipped her over, pushing her wet hair off her back and peppering kisses to it. He nibbled her shoulder blades and kissed down the path of her spine, pressing a kiss to one butt cheek and then the other.

 

She should be embarrassed. This was her best friend in the whole world and he was feasting on her body, she was giving him free reign. Yet she couldn’t be, because his strong hands gripped her softly and his lips worshipped her, pressing words against her skin.

 

“ _Please”_ she begged him.

 

He was so loyal, so good. He had never denied her anything. So he lifted her hips up and pushed inside of her. She felt so full and his hands gripped her hips as though he was holding on for dear life. Her fingers scrunched in the bed sheets as she took up a prayer of his name.

 

“ _Jon, Jon, Jon,”_ she cried and felt his face in her hair, his body chest against her back spreading his warmth and weight until she was begging to be crushed.

 

“ _Ella, oh Doe you’re so perfect, you’re all I need, oh Ella,”_ he babbled against her, snapping his hips, their thighs slapping.

 

He was bringing out a madness in her, it was the only explanation for why she whimpered out, _“I love you_ ,” before her orgasm took hold.

 

“God _damnit_ ,” he cried before releasing a final thrust and coming with a shudder.

 

They lay there for a while in the truth of what had just happened. She should feel like she was going to be crushed alive with him on top of her but his steady weight calmed her.

 

“Jon…” she started.

 

“Don’t…” he said gruffly getting off of her.

 

She was hit with a sudden fury. He had done this to her, him and Robb. Jon had kissed her and Robb had encouraged him and they _knew_. They knew she had always loved him. It didn’t matter _how_ she had loved him, all that mattered is that his home was in her heart and they had brought her to this point. They knew she could never sleep with someone she didn’t love. That sex was never sex to her. That what they did to her would enliven her and damn her all at once.

 

“You promised,” she said, her voice like ice, hopping off the bed, not caring that she was fully naked because he had seen her very soul, what did him glancing upon her skin matter now?

 

“What did I promise?” he asks her, having the audacity to sound angry with her as he searched for his clothes.

 

“You promised you’d always love me!” she cries, because it wasn’t fair. She’d only fallen in love once before and though she had been loved back for so long she could still remember the early days when he’d deny it, deny her. Why was she cursed to love such stubborn men?

 

He wrenches her body to him and kisses her as though it could save his life, or more importantly to him, hers.

 

“I do love you,” he growled at her, “I love you in every way you can love a person and I am damned seven times over for it.”

 

And then he left her alone. Just like he promised he never would.

 


	6. These things take time

 

He could have killed him. He could have killed him for many reasons. That he had brought out those feelings in his beloved wife, for one. That he had denied them, for another.  
  
He had always known it. Ella and Jon had loved one another beyond reason ever since they were children. Had it not been for Sansa, his beloved sister, dead before her time, they would have fought for Ella within an inch of their lives.  
  
After all, it was Ella who Jon called first when his mother died. It was Jon who Ella chose for her first seven minutes in heaven, though to this day they both insist they only spoke in that closet. They had saved one another a thousand different ways and it was only right that you loved the person who would withstand anything, be anything for you that you needed.  
  
In the months following Sansa's death it had been Ella, only Ella, who was able to rouse Jon. She did it in the best way she knew how, by needing him. It wasn’t hard to pretend in those days, at twenty-two and a mother to an infant born too early. How many times had Robb come home from work to find Jon on his couch with a sleeping Tommy in his arms and an exhausted Ella curled up at his side. In the end, the thing that saved Jon was Ella and his irreversible vow to love her, always.  
  
Robb had always known this was where it would be headed. He had known it when he and Jon had spoken of it, the two of them belligerently drunk after Tommy's birthday, the day of Sansa's death.  
  
FLASHBACK  
  
_"Let's have another!" Jon said._  
  
"I can't.... Ella..." Robb tried to articulate.  
  
"The same Ella who told you to stay at mine tonight, because she knew we'd get this way and didn't want you driving?" Jon asked.  
  
"Poor Ella..." Robb said, "She... she should be here."  
  
Ella had loved Sansa as much as either of them. It wasn't right that she was at home, caring for their young son when he was out, drunk and miserable. But she had simply kissed him, told him to be safe and curled up in Tommy’s bed with him, preferring to focus on what she did have. In a way it was easier, all she had was grief, while he and Jon had guilt too.  
  
"If she were here, this wouldn't be happening." Jon said sagely.  
  
He was right. Ella could party with the best of them, but they weren’t partying. It would have gone one of two ways, she either would have either drank a little too much and gotten upset, burdened by the overwhelming loss of her dearest friend, and he and Jon would have stopped in order to take care of her or she would have told them that this was pointless and made them sober up and go to the diner for lemon meringue pie where they would all go over their best Sansa memories. Either would be an improvement on him and Jon sitting side by side, with an ocean of grief and a bottle of whiskey between them. 

__  
Robb nodded at the truth of that. So they drank in silence.  
  
There was so much he wanted to tell Jon, so much he couldn't tell Jon. So instead, he asked questions.  
  
"So when was the last time you got laid?" Robb asked him.  
  
"Robb!" Jon protested. Which told him everything, it had been a while.  
  
"Dude it's not healthy," Robb told him. Jon was still young, only 27 like him. Sansa wouldn't have wanted him to live like a monk.  
  
"What if it had been Ella?" Jon asks him.  
  
"Don't go there," Robb said gripping his beer glass so hard he thought it might shatter. He couldn’t deal with that thought even hypothetically, especially on the anniversary of Sansa’s death.  
  
"How could you ever be with another person after her?" Jon asked defeatedly.  
  
Robb couldn't deny it. If Ella died, even if he resisted his deepest impulses, he would still live a half-life. There would never have been anyone after.  
  
"I couldn't. But you can." He says.  
  
"Are you seriously going to tell me I loved Sansa less than you love Ella? Think wisely on your next words, Stark." Jon says angrily.   
  
"No! No of course not. You're the only person who I've ever seen love a person as much I love Ella. I've just... also seen other things." Robb says, trying to ease into his thoughts.  
  
"Like what?" Jon asked grumpily.  
  
Like the way you looked at Ella when you covered her in a blanket while we were watching football last weekend. Or the way you dressed up as a fairy princess to make her and Tommy happy. Or even the way your eyes shot to her ass when she bent over to pull cookies out of the oven.  
  
"There's another girl you've always loved." Robb says. He had been thinking about this for weeks. He hated his decision even as he made it. But he knew it was the right one.  
  
Jon had enough honor not to ask him who he was referring to.  
  
"And what? You'd just like to loan me your wife?" he jokes.  
  
"Not loan...share." Robb says and Jon’s eyes shoot to his. He hadn’t thought he was serious.  
  
"How drunk are you man?" Jon asks him with a shake of his head.  
  
"Very. I'd have to be to bring this up. But I mean it." He says meeting Jon’s eyes.  
  
"Ella loves you, she'd never..." Jon says and trails off.  
  
Robb wondered if he was thinking of the way Ella would make up the guest room for him, stocking it with all of his favorite things even though he lived only a mile away. Or the way sometimes when they dragged her to a horror movie she'd grab both of their hands and would sometimes cover her eyes against Jon’s shoulder rather than his. Or even the way she'd blushed when Jon chased her around the kitchen telling her she'd pay for teasing him about his new haircut. Because that's what Robb thought about.

_He wasn't crazy. He knew Ella loved him, probably to an unhealthy degree. He knew that she would never be unfaithful to him, that in her conscious mind, it wouldn't even occur to her. He knew that he made her happy, though all these years later he still wasn't exactly sure how._

_But he also knew that Ella needed Jon, just like he needed her and he knew, deep down, that there was a spark between them that neither would acknowledge, but both felt._

_He was the problem. If he could just get over his jealousy, he could make the two people, other than his son, who he loved the most happy. He could keep them safe_

_It was that thought that convinced him._

_"Tell me this, do you want her?" he asked Jon._

_Jon was silent for a long while. He wondered if he was thinking of Ella's golden hair or her girlish body or the most beautiful face he'd ever known._

_"It's Ella," he said finally._

_"I'll take that as a yes."_

 

PRESENT DAY

 

He came out of the bathroom to find Ella putting on pajamas with tears drying on her cheeks. She didn't even look at him, she just got into bed as he went to his closet and pulled on a pair of sweatpants. He shut off the light and got into bed with her. 

 

They lay in the dark for a long while before she asked simply, "Why?"

 

He sighed. It was a good question, one he'd been expecting. "Because I want you to be happy."

 

"But I was happy," she said as though it was the craziest thing he could have said. 

 

_I know, sweet girl. I know._

 

***

 

It was 3 am and he'd been awake for hours, tossing and turning. 

 

 _You promised, you promised, you promised_ he hears over and over again. 

 

 _Mine, mine, mine_ he hears when that relents. 

 

FLASHBACK

 

_"What do you mean, yours?" she asked him._

 

_"I mean you belong to me," he says, pulling her closer to him. The night air was cold but the warmth from the bonfire and her in his arms made it feel cleansing more than anything else._

 

_"That seems a little archaic if you ask me," she says with a roll of her eyes, "This isnt the 1950s after all."_

 

_He didn't feel the need to remind her that the 1950s could hardly be considered archaic. She knew that and was purposefully goading him anyway._

 

_"I don't mean it like you're a piece of property, Sansa. But you belong to me, just like I belong to you."_

 

_"I can't imagine you ever belonging to anyone," she says._

 

_He lifts her chin so he can meet her eyes, "What is that supposed to mean?"_

 

_"It means, duty is your first love. You always do what you should do first, and what you want to do second."_

 

_He couldn't deny it. Theirs was a new relationship, and he had fought it, despite its inevitability, because she was younger, and his best friend's little sister. Because it would change everything between all of them forever._

 

_"That's over, Sansa. I only care about doing what's right by you. You are my duty and my morality and my honor now. I am yours, completely." He vows to her._

 

_"Mine?" she says with a smile on her beautiful face now._

 

_"Yours."_

 

PRESENT DAY

 

His body hurt with the pain of missing her. His Sansa, his beautiful, lively girl who had been taken far before her time. 

 

The Sansa who had loved him, more than anything. The Sansa who he'd always belong to in a way. The same Sansa who had always wanted him to forget about duty. 

 

He walked through the second floor of Robb and Ella's home as quietly as he could before opening their bedroom door and closing the door, and locking it.

 

Even in the dark, he could see Ella curled up in on herself asleep. Robb's head lifted off the pillow. 

 

"It's Ella," Jon said simply. He could see Robb nod once before setting his head back on the pillow. 

 

Jon got in next to her. She was so little that she hardly took up any room on the bed and he laid down so that his head rested on the same pillow. As if she sensed him she curled up against him, and he let his arm wrap around her, feeling the ridges of her spine and the warmth that seemed to emanate from her very pores. She let out a sigh that sounded like his name and he knew then what he should have known before, that he had been doomed from the start.

 

_After all, what is duty compared to a woman's love?_

 

***

 

A decision had been made between Robb and Jon. She wasn't sure how they'd come to it, but it had been made nevertheless. 

 

Ever since she woke up in Jon's arms the morning after Christmas they had wordlessly fallen into a relationship. He stayed at their house more often than not now. It had been months, and though no one other than them knew, they had created a rhythm that worked well for everyone. So it seemed, anyway.

 

She woke up happy every day. And ten seconds later hit would be hit with the weight of immense guilt.

 

She knew at her heart, that if she could reverse it all, she would. It was strange to love someone like that, knowing you'd give them up if you had the chance. But there was almost nothing she wouldn't give to have Sansa back in her life. There were three lives she couldn't trade, and Jon's was one of them, but she knew she'd give up her relationship with him if it meant Sansa was alive and well. If he could be happy the way he was always meant to be. It was strange that this didn't diminish the love she felt for him, it only accompanied it. 

 

"So why didn't you ask Robb?" Jon asks her.

 

FLASHBACK 

 

_"How can you ask me that?"_

_"Because you love him."_

_She was only fourteen, what did she know about love. Was it the way her breath caught when Robb took her hand during last week's blackout as he lead her by candlelight to the living room? Was it the way she felt like she had been punched in her stomach whenever she saw him kiss Jeyne?_

_"He has a girlfriend," she said, because it was something that she knew. Something she could wrap her head around._

_"Pff, there is no world in which Jeyne Westerling wins out over Ella Baratheon," Jon says, shaking his head as though the thought is inconceivable._

_They had been in the closet for a few minutes now, so she finally asked, "Jon?"_

_"Yeah Ella?"_

_"You haven't kissed me."_

_"I thought you didn't want to kiss anyone. I thought that's why you chose me," he said, his brow furrowing._

_"I would have chosen Sansa if that were the case," Ella said with a giggle._

_"Being a fly on the wall for that would be my idea of seven minutes in heaven," he said with a roguish grin._

_She reached out to shove him and he caught her hand against his chest, pulling her to him. He and Robb had been playing varsity football for two years now and the proof was in his strength as she almost fell against his chest. He reached out a hand, as though to steady her, but he brought it up to her chin, tilting her head up to him._

_"Tell me, Doe, have you ever been kissed before?" he asks her, a smirk on his handsome face._

_"Don't you think you'd know if I had?" she asks him. This was Jon after all, he knew everything there was to know about her._

_"That is a tragedy of the highest order, but I can't be your first kiss..." he said with a sigh._

_"But you're my best friend..." she said dejectedly. Who better than to give her her first kiss than Jon? He would tell her if she’d done it wrong, he wouldn’t tease her, he wouldn’t tell people the way Joffrey had when Sansa had let him kiss her._

_"I know Doe... how could I ever -" he starts, but he stops abruptly when the door opens and Robb appears._

_"Time's up," he says, looking at Jon._

_If she wasn’t mistaken, there was anger in Robb’s eyes. It makes her feel triumphant, that Robb Stark, the boy that made her insides turn to jelly and her heart beat at what had to be an unhealthy rate, was jealous because of her._

_“That was fun,” Ella says to Jon, kissing him on his cheek and walking by Robb without a second glance, though she felt his eyes on her as she walked away._

_Maybe Jon was right, she’d never seen him look at Jeyne Westerling the way he’d just looked at her._

***

 

She gripped his hand tighter, “Because… well… what if I am?”

 

He pushed her hair back with his other hand and looked into her eyes, the grey of his filling her with warmth and comfort like they always did, “Then that’s wonderful. Robb will think so too.”

 

“But what if…” Ella starts but then is interrupted as her doctor walks back in the room.

 

“Congratulations, Mrs. Stark, you look to be about a month along.”


	7. Ours

 

It was odd having the house to themselves. Jon had loaded up Tommy, Grey Wind and Ghost and taken them to his for the evening, promising his nephew a raucous night of Thomas the Tank Engine and delivery pizza. Tommy had of course left without giving either of his parents a second glance, happy for a Boys Night as he and Jon had taken to calling it. 

 

"What did I do to get you all to myself?" he asks Ella, coming up behind her as she stands up the stove.

 

"You married me, my love, seems only fitting," she said, her head falling back against his shoulder so she could kiss his jaw. He ran his hands up and down her slender arms. 

 

It was five years to the day since they'd promised themselves to one another. It had been a surprise to everyone when they wed while Ella was still in college, but they had sold their souls to one another long before and he hadn't wanted to wait a moment longer before they were tied together in every way possible. Mercifully she had felt the same way. 

 

She had been the most beautiful bride the world had ever known. He still remembered the way his breath caught when he saw her in her elegant long sleeved lace gown, or the way he had nearly whimpered when he undid her pearl buttons at the end of the night. 

 

He had tried to convince her to let him take her away for the weekend, or failing that, at least to one of their favorite restaurants, but she had wanted to spend the night here, with him. Who was he to deny a request such as that?

 

She moved away from him, reaching in the cupboard for some spice she just  _knew_ had to be added, without the assistance of a recipe and she asked him, "Do you want a beer, or a glass of wine?"

 

"It's our anniversary, shouldn't we be drinking champagne?" he asked her, opening the door that would bring him down to their wine cellar. 

 

"You don't like champagne," she insists with a smile.

 

"No, but  _you_ do," he says, returning it.

 

All these years later he was still the boy who took her for sushi on their first date because she loved it, even though he could barely get through the first course without heaving. He remembered her scolding him and making him take her to the diner. _I just want to be with you Robb Stark, now stop being such a ninny and get me a milkshake._

She turned to him then and it was like the whole world had gone into slow motion. He had seen that look before, they had been married a little over a year and he’d come back to the apartment they’d been living in at the time to find Grey Wind jutting in front of her protectively and that wary look on her face.

 

“I can’t have any champagne…” she said.

 

“Did you develop an aversion to carbonation?” he asked her, his grin almost wolfish as he walked towards her.

 

“No…” she said the wary look gone and a small smile settling on her gorgeous face.

 

“Have you suddenly decided that champagne is _passe_?” he asks her teasingly.

 

“How _dare_ you,” she jokes, “Champagne is timeless. Like pearl earrings, thank you notes, and my love for you.”

 

“Ella Stark,” he says gathering her in his arms, “We’re having a baby?”

 

It was all he had wanted for so long, especially now. They had agreed to wait after Tommy was born. Between his early birth and Sansa’s death, it felt like so long before their heads were once again above water. He had been aching to hold a new child in his arms though, every moment with Tommy and Ella made him want to expand their family, seeing how his ability to love only grew. He wanted it more now though, more than he ever had.

 

He is surprised to see tears welling in her eyes, “Don’t be frightened, my love. Last time… nobody could have predicted that,” he says pulling her closer to him “You’ll be-“

 

“What if… _we_ aren’t?” she asks him and then her face crumbles and she leans her head against his chest, gripping him tighter. He holds her to him and stroked her hair, his chin resting on her head. He couldn’t quite explain it, but he loved that even with something like this, she still drew her comfort from _him_.

 

He lifts her heads, the pads of his thumbs brushing her tears away, “You listen to me, my darling wife, anything that comes from _this_ body, anything blessed with _this_ heart, is something I will love beyond reason or sense, beyond anything. This child whomever the father, will be ours. All of ours.”

 

She lets out a half-laugh, half-cry and kisses him. Even after all this time, it still felt like the first time.

 

FLASHBACK

 

_“Persephone? Oh Persephone…” he called quietly into the darkened room._

_“Ares? Are we to war?” she asked him sleepily. She had after all been sleeping._

_It was 3 am and they were at his family’s lake house. She was sixteen and beautiful and he was eighteen and tired of fighting the things he’d been fighting since before he knew what it was to feel them. He had broken up with Jeyne months ago, and had only learned that evening that she too had broken up with Trystane. A kind, weak boy who hadn’t deserved her in the first place._

_He made his way to her bed. He sat on the side of it, brushing her golden hair away from her face._

_There was thunder rolling in the distance and flashes of lightening illuminating her beauty in brilliant flashes._

_She looked up at him with a small smile on her face, not acknowledging that he hadn’t answered her, and instead asking, “Has Hades come for me once again?”_

_“Afraid so, sweet girl,” he said with a smile. He loved that he could still be a child with her. It had nothing to do with her being younger than him, she was more mature than him in every way, but rather that he had known her since she was born and had always delighted in telling her stories and drawing her into his games._

_“Then you must protect me,” she says firmly, and moves over slightly, just enough for him to lay down beside her, which he does._

_He hadn’t thought to put on a shirt when he left his bedroom, he hadn’t actually thought about anything except for her, so his breath hitched in surprise when she let the pad of her index finger whisper through his newly grown chest hair._

_“You have become a man,” she says quietly, her brow furrowed as though the idea of it displeased her._

_“Hardly that,” he says, picking her finger up and pressing a kiss to its pad. He felt himself grow dizzy by the delicacy of her little gasp. “A man wouldn’t have waited so long to do what I have come to do.”_

_“And what is that?” she asked him._

_“I came to tell you that I love you. I know it’s not right to just say it that way. I should ask you on a date. Tell you you’re beautiful. Ask you what your favorite movie is and whether or not that you have any siblings. But I know all of that. I know your favorite movie when you can’t sleep is How to Steal a Million, and your favorite movie when you’re sad is The Philadelphia Story. I know that you have five siblings, the same as I do. And you already know that I think you’re beautiful because I tell you all the time. So I don’t care. I’m skipping ahead. I’m doing it all wrong because I love you, Ella Baratheon. Always have, always will.”_

_She looked at him for a long moment. If it were any other girl he would be afraid. Afraid that he’d come on too strong or that he’d said the wrong thing. But this was Ella._

_“You sure talk a lot for a boy who should be kissing me,” she finally said with a smile._

_He let go of her hand to tilt her chin up towards him. He looked at her bow lips and her wise green eyes and the freckles dotting her nose and he knew he’d remember this moment for the rest of his life. He lowered his lips to hers and he could feel her blooming beneath him. The kiss went on and on, until suddenly, as though scalded she broke away from him._

_“Did I tell you that I love you too?” she asked, her breath a bit shaky._

_“No,” he said. She hadn’t had to. He knew._

_“Oh but I do,” she said kissing his nose and his cheeks and his lips so sweetly. She looked up at him and said wisely, more wise than he’d ever heard anyone sound, “We love each other, has there ever been a truth as lovely as that?”_

PRESENT DAY

 

“I love you, Robb Stark,” she said when they broke apart.

 

“I know, Persephone, and there has never been a truth as lovely as that.”

 

***

 

It was Saturday morning and she was lying on the couch in Robb’s arms. They’d had a wonderful night and made love more times than she could count, still discovering new ways of pleasing each other after all these years. Jon and Tommy would be back any minute and while she was excited to see them, she was relishing her last moments with just her husband before the chaos ensued.

 

As if she’d willed them, she heard car doors slam shut, the excited barking of Ghost and Grey Wind as they ran off into the woods. They’d be gone for hours and would come back as though they’d had a wonderful adventure. The front door opened and there he was. The love of her life.

 

“Mommy, Daddy!” Tommy shouted when he saw them and ran to them.

 

Robb wrapped his arms around both of them as she pressed kisses to his russet curls.

 

“We had the _best night ever_ , didn’t we Uncle Jon?” he says, turning to Jon who had just come in the room.

 

_How does the boy I’ve known my whole life suddenly make my stomach flip-flop?_

_“Ever.”_ Jon agrees with his crinkly smile.

 

She wants to kiss him, but she can’t. Tommy didn’t know, he wouldn’t understand, and none of them would do anything to confuse him.

 

“Alright, baby,” she says, kissing Tommy’s cheek, “I have to go to the grocery store. Think you and Daddy can have some fun without me?”

 

“Can we play trains? And spaceship? Can we have hot cocoa?” Tommy starts pestering Robb who can only chuckle and nod, tossing him up in the air and saying yes to it all.

 

Ella smiled lovingly at them before striding over to where Jon was standing.

 

“Hi Doe,” he said, his warm grey eyes drinking her in.

 

“Want to go grocery shopping?” she asked. Not exactly her most tempting offer. He looked at her like it was though and nodded, grabbing her coat from the closet for her.

 

He drove them over in his big truck and he told her all about his night with Tommy.

 

“By god that kid is something special. I mean I _guess_ I’m bias, but did you know he knows the word _condiment_? He’s three!” Jon said with a laugh and a shake of his head.

 

It wasn’t fair. To compliment a son to his mother.

 

“I know. He’s such a weird kid,” she said lovingly. “Do you know how much he loves you? Do you know what he said to me the other day?” she asked him. Jon looked at her briefly and raised his eyebrows. “It was after you carried the two of us to his bed. He said _When I’m older I’m going to be just like Uncle Jon. I’m going to be big and strong and good just like them. And I’m going to take care of you like he does._ ”

 

“El…” Jon says and grips her hand. “If this is… getting confusing for him… or… anything… I’ll pull back.”

 

“That’s what you took from that?” she asks him curiously. He pulls over to a shoulder on the side of the road and looks at her. That was something she loved about him. He was never half-focused on you. “My son _loves_ you Jon. You’re his uncle… and you… you and Robb are showing him what it is to be a man. How kindness makes you _strong_ how love makes you _brave_. You think I … you think I could take that away from him? You think I’d want to?”

 

“Ella… don’t talk like that,” he said gripping her hand, “Please.”

 

“Why?” she asked him. _What did I do wrong?_

“Because you almost make me believe that there is a happy ending here, that someday you’ll be talking about _our_ children with that fervor in your eyes. You should see yourself, Doe, when you talk about him. You are a Madonna made real.”

 

Ella couldn’t look at him, she placed her hand on her still flat stomach willing the little life in there to know that she already did feel that fervor for them. That she always would.

 

“Robb said that… whatever happened… that this baby would always be ours,” she said looking up at him, “All of ours.”

 

“Of course he did,” Jon let out a single mirthless laugh.

 

 _If you think this has a happy ending you haven’t been paying attention_ the vindictive voice in her head told her.

 

“Jon –“

 

“It’s easy for _him_ to say that, isn’t it? Even if this baby is _mine_ he’ll still be the one to claim them won’t he?” Jon said angrily.

 

She wanted to tell him that it wasn’t what Robb meant. That he had only meant that he’d love the child no matter what. That he’d never treat them differently than Tommy.

 

“You said it would be wonderful…” she said instead.

 

“Doe…” he started but trailed off.

 

“I just…I know it’s different for you and Robb… no matter what, this baby is mine and…” she trailed off, and couldn’t help the tears that fell from her eyes. She had been the same way when she was first pregnant with Tommy. Prone to tears. It was frustrating for a girl who’d always been able to hold her own. “I just don’t want them to grow up without you.”

 

“You think that’s what I meant? That I would _leave_ them? Leave _you_?” he asks her. “You, Robb, Tommy, this baby, you _own_ me. I will _never_ leave you. I will be there for them as anything, anything that they need. I’m here, Doe. Always, promise.”

 

Most people didn’t get to be loved like this. Selflessly and honorably, despite the situation. Most people didn’t understand the concept of true devotion. Ella did. She always had. She was positively rotten with it.

 

They had always called her Persephone. _The girl so lovely that Death stole her and the Gods mourned her_ , they liked to say. Ella wasn’t so sure. She wouldn’t be surprised if it had been the girl who had first asked the Devil to dance.

 

***

 

"Come  _on_ , at least try," Jon growled at him.

 

"You couldn't  _handle_ it if I tried," Robb said back cockily. 

 

They had always been competitive. Snow and Stark. Best friends. Brothers. Rivals.

 

FLASHBACK

 

_"What say you Stark? And you Snow?" she asked with an impish smile on her young face. Her hands on her hips like she was far older and more knowledgeable than they. "Who will catch me first?"_

 

_"I'm coming for you, Doe," Robb said, stalking forward. At twelve he was tall and broad, having just gone through a growth spurt._

 

_That was alright. Jon hadn't grown as much, but Jon was fast. Really fast._

 

_The little girl took off into a sprint. With her long limbs she was worthy prey and she had always delighted in teasing them so she zigzagged and turned backwards, making both he and Robb fall at least once or twice. He and Robb also tackled one another at least once, giving her more time, prolong the game._

_Sansa was in bed with the flu. She was the only girl he’d ever known to get the flu during the summer and she’d been in bed for days. So it had fallen on him and Robb to entertain Ella._

 

_She took off into the woods, and Jon surged forwards, the first behind her. Now it was not just competition that egged him on, but her safety. There were errant branches and unassuming divots and he was worried that graceful, sure footed Ella would be so consumed with the game that she wouldn’t pay attention._

 

_"Doe! Doe get back here!" he yelled._

 

_"No you come and find me, Jon Snow..." she called and his head whipped around trying to find her._

 

_"I thought we were playing tag, not hide and seek," he called back, calmed slightly now that he knew she was walking._

 

_"We're playing whatever I want to play," she called in her sing-song voice, "You boys were teasing me."_

 

_He heard a branch snap and he wasn't sure if it was her or Robb but either way he took off in that direction._

 

_"Teasing? We weren't teasing you..." Jon lied, trying to listen for her footsteps. They had been._

 

_He heard her the leaves scrunch beneath her feet as she took of into a run and he hurried in that direction, until suddenly she was right in front of him. He reached out and grabbed her by her waist, picking her right off the ground._

 

_He cradled her in his arms, one leg under the back of her knees._

 

_"It's you." she said, a small smile on her lips. "I wasn't sure who it would be."_

 

_"Of course its me. Have you forgotten Doe? Hades always catches Persephone in the end..."_

 

PRESENT DAY

 

Jon smirked at him and served. They were at their weekly tennis game, the first they'd been able to play outside of the year. 

 

They were well matched and always had been. Who won was usually determined by luck, and in a few cases, by who wanted it more. Skill never came into it, they were equals. 

 

Robb returned it easily and they set into an easy rhythm.

 

Robb returned the ball and Jon lunged. He shouldn't have even tried for it, but he did, unbelievably making contact and returning it to Robb. Robb hadn't been expecting it and he too lunged forward.

 

It happened so quickly that Jon could have swore it hadn't. Mid-lunge, Robb's face spasmed and he fell. Jon could swear he saw his eyes roll into the back of his head. 

 

Jon had trained with Robb since they were five, whether it was for soccer or football or tennis. He had never seen him like that. His body vulnerable. He felt like someone had stepped over his grave.

 

He abandoned his racket, calling to an attendant, " _Call an ambulance!"_ as he sprinted over to his friend, his brother.

 

He knelt down and tapped Robb's face lightly, "Robb! Robb? Wake up, wake up!"

 

After what felt like a lifetime, Robb's eyes opened. "What was that?" Jon asks him.

 

"There's something you should know, brother."


	8. Truth

He had been dreading this for months. He knew they would find out eventually, he knew that he couldn’t hide it forever, but there was nothing more intrinsic to Robb Stark’s being than wanting to protect the people he loves. But how could he protect them from this?

 

Even at the time, he could think of only one way. 

 

He had seen it, the way Jon had retired into himself after Sansa died. How it had been only Ella and Tommy could bring him out of it. He had seen the way Ella and Jon took care of one another. How Jon had become crazed when Ella had gotten pneumonia the winter after Tommy was born and had visited her in the hospital every day, despite her being contagious and having forbidden Robb out of fear she’d pass it on to Tommy, or the way she had started trying to set him up with women she knew a half year after that, despite the fact that it was her best friend he’d been in love with and the sight of him with anyone else most likely felt like a betrayal.

 

It wasn’t only that Ella took care of Jon, who had lost the love of his life. Jon took care of Ella, who had lost her dearest friend in the world. It had always seemed to Robb that the only friendship that had ever rivalled his and Jon’s was Ella’s and Sansa’s. The girls had grown up innocent and fierce, protective and encouraging of one another. They had inside jokes that turned into secret languages and could be found at any given moment, lying on their sides facing one another whispering the secrets of the universe. He and Jon had always been competitive, but the girls took solace in one another’s victories, preferring to be the one in the shadow if it meant the other could shine more brightly. 

 

Ella, a new mother, only twenty years old and without her best friend clung to the people who reminded her of Sansa most. Him and Jon. 

 

He had lost the love of his life and she had lost her sibling, the greatest confidant she’d ever had. They had relied on each other to get through it, and Robb hated that they would need to once again.

 

“Are you ready?” Jon asked him as he parked his truck in Robb and Ella’s driveway.

 

FLASHBACK

 

_“Are you ready?” Robb asked, peaking his head into her room._

 

_“Almost, can you come in though?” Ella asked him, her head poking out of her walk-in closet. He caught sight of her bare arm and cleared his throat, walking in and closing the door._

 

_They had been dating for a few weeks and Robb, despite having been in there more times than he could count, still felt like an ogre in Ella’s feminine room at the lake house. It wasn’t girly, per se, she wasn’t one for pink ruffles, but it was so elegant and sweet, just like her. There was a vase with lavender in it that Rickon had picked for her and a drawing of her sleeping on the dock that Sansa had half finished._

 

_He walked over to the closet and was greeted with the sight of Ella in a light yellow silk mini dress, her back to the mirror as she turned to look at herself over her shoulder._

 

_“Is this too short?” she asked him curiously, standing up on her tip toes as though it might make her see better._

 

_Miles of toned, tan legs were exposed, but the dress was nowhere near inappropriate. It was loose and he could just make out the curve of her taut backside when she moved and it made her look so feminine that he felt like he was turning into an animal out of desire for her._

 

_He cleared his throat once again, “Um, no. It looks fine.” Liar._

 

_She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow, “Fine?” she asked him curiously. She had a right to be surprised. Ella wasn’t vain, but there had never been a day he’d called her anything less than beautiful ever since she was a child._

 

_He nodded his assent and she turned around so that she was facing the mirror appraising herself, “Well if it’s just fine then I had better change,” she said innocently before removing her dress. Robb felt his eyes go cloudy as her white lace bra and panties were revealed to him. He’d seen her in bathing suits too many times to count, but it was like he was seeing her body for the first time. This was the first time she was revealing herself to him. She met his eye in the mirror and raised her eyebrow._

 

_He came up behind her and pulled her to him, his head bending down so he could kiss her collarbone, burying his head in her neck and smelling in jasmine and her._

 

_“You win, Ella Baratheon. There has never been a day in your life where you’ve been anything short of perfect, and if it wasn’t Sansa’s birthday dinner we were getting ready for I would say to hell with this whole night and spend every second showing you how perfect you are,” he said against her skin._

 

_“You already do,” Ella whispered and his head popped up. “I am never going to be more beautiful than I am to your eyes. I am never going to be safer than in your arms. Everything about me, everything I am, is intensified by and for you. Any perfection in me at all is from loving you.”_

 

_He could have proposed to her then and there. They had only been dating for a few weeks but they had been bound to one another their whole lives. He had loved her since before he knew what love was and she had never known a world without it._

 

_“Then you must love me a great deal,” he said, for if her perfection was proof of her love, than it was unbelievably and entirely possible that she loved him just as much as he loved her._

 

PRESENT DAY

 

“No, but I guess I have to be,” Robb said and the two men nodded at one another as they got out of the truck and walked through the front door.

 

“Hi boys,” Ella said from her spot on the couch where Ghost and Grey Wind both flanked her, their heads resting on her stomach and lap as though they sought the reassurance of the tiny heartbeat only they could hear. “What am I in for this evening? Cat came to pick up Tommy an hour ago…” she asked with a shy smile, most likely remembering the last time they’d asked Cat and Ned to babysit, all of the things they had done to her, “Should I be nervous?”

 

***

 

“Should I be nervous?” she asked with her heartbreaking smile. She looked at him and Robb with such trust that it turned the knife resting in his gut. He hadn’t thought it possible to feel worse than he did until he saw her face.

 

He and Robb looked at one another and he nodded as both of them walked towards her in sync. They sat on the chairs opposite of the couch and he noticed the surprise in her eyes. It was not often they could resist touching her immediately when they were alone.

 

“My love…” Robb started and Ella’s gaze went to him. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

 

She had always been clever, too clever. Though Robb’s tone gave nothing away something had clicked in Ella’s mind and she jutted her chin stubbornly forward. “Then tell me.”

 

_She thinks he means to end this._

 

“Forgive me,” Robb says standing up and crossing to her. He kneels in front of her, her loyal subject, and though Jon can’t see him, he can hear the tears running down his face, “Forgive me, my darling, I am so sorry.”

 

“Of course I forgive you, I forgive you anything,” Ella says, alarmed now. She gets off the couch and kneels in front of him, brushing his tears, “What is it? Tell me, my love, we’ll sort it out.”

 

“There is nothing to sort,” Robb says. Jon grips the chair. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t supposed to be happening to them. Not to _them._ They had done everything right.“I’m dying Ella.”

 

Ella wrenches away from him, “What are you talking about?”

 

“I learned a few months ago… the cancer… its too far advanced…there’s nothing to be done…,” Robb repeats, proof that he’d consulted six specialists, all on his own before bringing this news to her. 

 

“There is always something to be done!,” Ella cried, she took his face in her hands and said, “You will not leave me. I forbid it.”

 

“You can’t,” Robb said shaking his head. 

 

“Robb. No. No. It’s not enough time. We haven’t… no. No I forbid it,” she said and the tears are falling freely from her eyes now. 

 

Robb takes her face in his hands now, and her mouth is held in an open, silent sob that tears Jon’s chest in two. He should’t be here for this. He doesn’t want to see this. 

 

“There is nothing I wouldn’t give you Ella,” Robb says, as he pulls her head to his chest, “Anything in my power is yours already. But I can’t give this, and I hate myself for it.”

 

The sob finally cracks as her shoulders shake and she clutches him. Robb rubs her back, pulling her into his lap as though she is no bigger than Tommy. He rocks her back and forth and though his words are for her, his eyes are on Jon, “It’s all going to be alright my darling, we promise.”

 

***

 

She wasn’t sure exactly when she’d fallen asleep, but at some point, Robb must have carried her into their room because it was he at the lay beside her. 

 

She propped herself on his elbow and surveyed her husband. He looked the same as ever, the very picture of health, an Adonis, her hero. How was it that he was being brought down by his own body? 

 

She pulled herself away from him, she didn’t want to, but there were things she needed to do, so she wrapped herself in her robe and put on her slippers, padding down the stairs to the kitchen.

 

Jon sat at the counter and he looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Without speaking he poured her a cup of coffee and doctored it the way she liked it and handed it to her with a kiss to her forehead. 

 

She opened her laptop and typed in the disease Robb had named. She read words like _aggressive_ and _terminal._

 

“He’s worked with the best doctors, El, there’s nothing we can do,” Jon said gruffly.

 

“How long have you known?,” she asked him, and she hated that there was an accusation in her tone. 

 

***

 

“How long have you known?,” she asked him, and the girl who normally looked at him like he was her hero, looked betrayed. 

 

_FLASHBACK_

 

_“How long have you known?,” Robb asked him, his voice full of betrayal._

 

_Jon wasn’t going to give in. Robb should have confronted it years ago and Ella had suffered because he hadn’t. He wouldn’t make it easier on him, even if it was his best friend._

 

_“A few days,” Jon said unapologetically._

 

_“A few days!?,” Robb growled. “And you didn’t_ **_think_ ** _to tell me?”_

 

_“I didn’t think you’d care,” Jon said, taunting him. He deserved it when Robb punched him._

 

_“It’s Ella!,” Robb growled as he helped Jon off the floor._

 

_“I know it’s Ella, she’s the love of your fucking life and you’ve never done anything about it! You’ve wasted time with Jeyne and now Ella’s found someone who actually had the nerve to ask her out. You don’t just get to ruin that because you’ve finally decided you’re ready to love her,” Jon growled back._

 

_“She’s… she’s dating that Martell…what if…,” Robb starts, he starts pacing the room, looking like a cage wolf, restless and lethal._

 

_“It’ll never last, man,” Jon says, “She’ll always be yours. Just give it some time, you have your whole lives ahead of you.”_

 

_***_

“Just a few days, Ella,” he says and braces himself for impact. 

 

But this is Ella, so she doesn’t rage against him, she walks over to him and pulls him into her arms. 

 

“I’m so sorry you had to learn it on your own, Jon,” she says and his heart breaks all over again. 

 

He holds her to him, the girl he loved with all his heart, “I’m so sorry I didn’t give you guys more time. I should have. I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”

 

They stand like that for a long while. He realises that soon, it will just be this. Just them. So he takes her hand and pulls her back upstairs, to her husband, so they can all start to make plans.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my god do we hate me? This has been plaguing me. I never write Ella and Jon's relationship as anything other than platonic in my other fics, but the devil was on my shoulder this evening... Let me know what you think!


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